Image by McDonalds

June is Pride Month (in honour of the 1969 Stonewall riots, which first sparked the gay rights movement). For a long time, the month has been closely associated with Pride parades, rainbow flags and LGBTQ rights. However, in recent years, June has also become the month when brands push LGBTQ-themed marketing campaigns.

While LGBTQ-targeted campaigns have been around for some time, it feels like most brands have now lost fear of expressing their views on social matters, and are letting go of unauthentic pink-washing to come out in full support for the community – from McDonalds’ rainbow French fry boxes, to Coca-Cola’s 2017 ‘Pool Boy’ commercial.

The list is long: Instagram has rolled out a special set of Pride features, including a rainbow brush; Equinox is exploring the LGBTQ-alphabet (it seems a lot of people get confused with the acronym); Just Salad has released its LGBTQ-themed ‘Big Gay Garden Salad’, and there are plenty of others.

Below you’ll find three of what we think are some of the most interesting LGBTQ-themed campaigns this year.

Coca-Cola (Brazil)

Brazilians (not all of them!) have long used the phrase ‘Essa coca é Fanta’, which can be translated into ‘This coke is actually Fanta’, to pejoratively question someone’s sexual orientation. So in a very clever move, Coca-Cola decided to leverage the popular saying to promote diversity and LGBTQ pride.

It has replaced the liquid inside cans of coke with Fanta, and challenged consumers with the following message written on packaging: ‘This coke is actually Fanta. So what?’.

The campaign was first trialed internally with employees, but it has gained so much traction due to so many people sharing photos of cans on social media platforms, as well all the PR it has received, that Coca-Cola is rolling out the campaign across the entire country, and may adapt it to other markets too.

Image by Coca-Cola Brasil

Skittles (UK)

While the majority of brands were busy finding ways to incorporate rainbows into their branding, Skittles has stood out by abandoning its usual rainbow look and adopting an all-white alternative in celebration of Pride. The idea was that in June, there’s only one rainbow that truly matters.

The limited-edition Skittles has taken over social media, with lots of people reacting by saying they’ve loved the initiative, and that they were also having fun trying to guess the actual flavours of the white lentils inside the pack.

Image by Skittles UK

Barba Men’s Grooming Boutique (USA)

Hair salons have always been some of the most LGBTQ-friendly public spaces. This year, US-based men’s grooming shop Barba has decided to show support for transgender men and women: during Pride month, customers wanting to help in raising awareness for the community could get their hair dyed blue, pink and white (the colours of the transgender flag) for free – even Marc Jacobs took advantage of the offer.

We find this campaign very interesting because of its amplification potential which goes far beyond social media – customers not only shared photos of their new hairstyle on their own channels (which helped raising awareness for both the transgender community and the salon), but also strolled around for days showcasing, as well as talking about the initiative to everyone who’s asked.

Image by Barba Men’s Grooming Boutique

Branding diversity is not a new idea, but it takes guts to do it nowadays.

For years brands have proudly championed values of multiculturalism and equality, and tried to make such beliefs central to what they represent. But recent developments in politics, coupled with growing resentment towards multi-national corporations and their visions of a globalised world are now testing brands’ willingness to stand up to their beliefs.

We have recently seen two Sharing Economy giants, Uber and Airbnb, become part of debate on social media for their stance on the ‘Muslim-ban’ proposed by President Trump.

#DeleteUber trended on multiple social media platforms when Uber didn’t join NYC yellow cab drivers in a protest, and Lyft – a main competitor in the USA – became one of the most downloaded apps in the App store. Uber faced further criticism because its CEO was part of the president’s economic advisory board – he stepped down due to public pressure, just to end up facing criticism from Trump supporters for doing it.

Airbnb on the other hand, has been praised by how it handled the same issue; it engaged its global community of hosts to support everyone affected by the ban, and is now rolling out a larger campaign to continue to champion its belief in a world without barriers (#WeAccept), which included a 30-second Super Bowl spot.

Their goal is to offer short-term housing for 100,000 people in need in the next five years.

2017 is likely to put more brands in the same situation; some have already started to reassess their stance in socio-economic matters. But there is a vast array of articles and studies from which to learn about Millennial and Gen Z consumers’ preference for brands with strong values.

IBM has changed its logo in protest against anti-LGBT legislation in the United States

So it gets down to a matter of long-term versus short-term vision; should brands forget equity that has taken time, money and effort to build and act impulsively, or do they stand up to their beliefs and values and aim at building a legion of loyal fans from a next generation of consumers?